


but who could call you wrong?

by zeitgeistofnow



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Michael Mell Has ADHD, Trans Michael Mell, Vampires, i mean it's implied and based only on talking w my brother but it's there!, michael has chickens!, rich is technically undead but i felt like saying major character death would be misleading, there's not enough expensive headphones content honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 06:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19351387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeistofnow/pseuds/zeitgeistofnow
Summary: michael doesn't expect to find someone hovering outside his window, but that doesn't stop rich from doing so.all of his chickens have twin bite marks on their necks, and the vampire responsible is oddly charming.





	but who could call you wrong?

**Author's Note:**

> title is from hozier's 'to noise making' because im gay and sad and his music is.. so good. it's also more angsty than this fic is, just a heads up.

Michael is  _ unbelievably  _ tired. The kind of tired where his feet feel like bricks and everything Jeremy says feels like the funniest thing since John Mulaney. The kind where he stands in front of his front door for like, five minutes looking for his key before Jeremy shouts from his car, reminding Michael that the door’s unlocked. The kind where he doesn’t even blink when he sees someone’s face through his bedroom window. 

His  _ third floor  _ bedroom window. The ones without any trellises or trees or porches that someone might climb up to get to his window. 

He blinks and the guy on the other side knocks awkwardly, then pries open the window and knocks again, louder, on the sill.

“Yo, man, can I come in?” He asks, over-enunciating. Michael can see a flash of fang when he talks, and somehow it doesn’t seem distressing. 

Michael sizes him up. He’s addled from Jeremy and his study session and it’s  _ very  _ late, but he’s still not an idiot. Fangs, apparently floating outside his room, asking permission to enter his open window? Probably a vampire, or something. “Yeah, no. You can chill out there if you want. My moms are asleep down the hall, though, so be quiet.” He collapses back into his bed and starts to pull off his sweatshirt, doing his best to ignore the guy.

He’s making a soft hissing noise, which is… weird. This whole thing is weird. Michael tugs off his binder, tugs  _ on  _ a sports bra, and fishes through his sweatshirt pocket for his phone. He has three texts from Jeremy- honestly, they said goodbye ten minutes ago and he’s  _ driving,  _ the guy’s an idiot- and five notifications from tumblr. He flicks on the flashlight and shines it at the boy outside his window. “Please stop hiss-” he stops and stares. 

“Uh, stop what?” The guy laughs awkwardly, and woah, he’s actually really pretty. Or, not pretty. A weird combination of elegant and whatever the opposite of elegant is, and it’s jarring. His eyes are bright and his hair is messy, with a dumb rooster stripe down the middle of his head. He’s wearing a tank top and jeans and his skin is almost ashy, though that might just be the light. Nothing about him says polished, and yet he is. “Dude?” He prompts, floating downward and crossing his arms on Michael’s windowsill. 

“Nothing, you’re just…” Michael’s mouth twists and he starts to sort through the clothes on his floor for pajamas. “Nevermind.”

The guy snorts. “Sure.” There’s a pause, and he grins, those teeth on full display again. Michael focuses on the floor in front of him, on locating the Ani DiFranco t-shirt he’s been using as pajamas. “You’re pretty too.” All of his words are careful pronounced. 

Michael just rolls his eyes. “Thanks.” He finds the shirt and puts it on. “What are you doing outside my window, anyway?”

“I’ve come to ther- serenade you,” he shoots back. Michael just stares at him- mostly because he doubts it and wants an answer, partly because he likes looking at this guys face. The guy looks away sheepishly. “I was hungry and your mom has chickens and I ran out of blood at home. Your light was on so I came up here after. I’m Rich.”

“Like a moth.” Michael yawns. “I’m Michael. You seem neat and I’m fucking exhausted, so I’ll ignore that you just killed my chickens.”

“I didn’t kill them!” Rich protests. “I wouldn’t. They’re adorable.”

“I know,” Michael says sleepily. “Ms. Pepper is the white one. She’s a handful.”

Rich snorts. “Ha. Yeah, I chased her around for way longer than I’d like to admit.”

Michael giggles- ugh. He hates that he giggles when he’s tired. “Well, mister vamp, I’m going to sleep. Shall I see you again?”

Rich adopts the same posh accent, a bit of a lisp slipping through his careful enunciation. “Perhaps, sir. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Michael manages to murmer before collapsing into his bed. He falls asleep almost immediately. 

 

He tells Jeremy about it the next day at lunch and Jeremy doesn’t quite laugh in his face- Jeremy tries not to laugh at Michael since he spent 400 dollars on a tic-tac- but he looks close. 

“Dude, you said there was a guy floating outside your window?” He shakes his head and takes a bite of his sandwich. “I knew you were tired, but wow. I don’t think you’ve hallucinated before.”

Michael rolls his eyes. “He was a vampire.”

“Uh-hu. Did he sparkle too?”

“It was probably a dream.” Michael says, waving a hand dismissively and sipping at his slushie. At Jeremy’s expective look, he sighs. “No, he didn’t sparkle. Twilight isn’t real, dude.”

Jeremy grumbles at him. “Neither are vampires, and you were just talking about one.”

“Yeah, but-” Michael stares over Jeremy’s shoulder. “Hey, that’s him.”

Jeremy cranes his head to look in the direction Michael points. “Oh, Rich?”

Michael widens his eyes. “ _ Yes,  _ Rich! That’s what he said his name was! Rich!”

The Rich-and-possibly-vampire in question is standing at a lunch table and chugging a soda. He swallows, drops the can on the floor, and grins at his friend- a tall guy in a wheelchair. His fangs flash when he grins, and Jeremy blinks and points at him, stuttering. 

“So… you saw the weird teeth too,” Michael verifies, a bit smug. “I  _ told  _ you.”

Jeremy elbows him, not looking away from Rich. “You’re the one who just said it was a dream.”

Michael shrugs and chews on his straw. “Wait, how do you know him?”

“He was in our fourth grade class,” Jeremy says, like Michael remembers anything before seventh grade. “And he was in my science last year.” Jeremy frowns. “I don’t think he had those teeth then, though. Maybe they’re fake and he’s just overenthusiastic about halloween?”

“It’s  _ March, _ ” Michael hisses. 

“Really, really overenthusiastic?” Jeremy smiles, trying to be winning and Michael rolls his eyes. 

He glances back at Rich, who has his arm wrapped around the other boy, laughing at something. “Sure.”

 

He’s back. He’s fucking back, leaning against Michael’s window like it’s not weird at  _ all.  _ “Yo, Mikey.” He says as greeting. 

“Hey, creepy window man,” Michael responds. “What’s up?”

Rich flips onto his back, kicking his feet up into the air. “Nothing much, just flying around town. Thought I’d drop in on you. Can I come in?”

“No. I have homework.”

Rich pouts for a second, then grins. “Woah, so do I! We could do homework together, like a study date.”

“You can’t come in,” Michael says firmly. “I don’t want to risk getting a vampire bite, my moms like me alive.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that…” Rich looks distressed. “That’s really sketchy, consent-wise. I’m a vampire who values human life.” He flips onto his stomach and wiggles his eyebrows at Michael. “Unless you wanted me too, I mean.”

Michael groans and does his best not to blush. He starts to unpack his backpack at his desk- math homework, half-written history essay, a letter Jeremy wrote to Christine that he wants him to  _ spell-check,  _ honestly, the boy is a mess- and Rich whimpers. Actually  _ whimpers.  _ Michael spins around and if his face wasn’t red before, it definitely is now. 

“Don’t sit at your desk! That’s so far away and you won’t let me come in.”

“Where am I supposed to sit then, the floor?”

Rich shrugs. “You could always let me in. Then you wouldn’t even have to worry about you neighbor seeing a boy hanging out of your window.”

“Honestly, I don’t care why my neighbors think. You’re not coming in.” Michael turns back to Jeremy’s letter, but Rich keeps whining, and Michael’s already shit at concentrating on things. “Fuck  _ off,  _ Dracula,” he mutters, but he stands up, his pencil and the notebook paper in one hand. He drags his comforter off the bed and throws it below his window. Rich grins blindingly at him- literally, are glowing teeth a vampire thing?- and rests his head in his hands. 

“I knew you’d come around.”

Michael shakes his head and flattens Jeremy’s note with one arm. “This is not for you. Just because my lamp is broken and the light is better over here.”

 

Michael speeds through the letter- Rich peers over his shoulder and snickers at Jeremy’s amateur prose. Some of it is a bit ridiculous, because there’s only so many ways you can compliment someone’s passion without being a little bit weird, and Jeremy failed every single poetry unit he’s ever taken, but overall Rich judges it “sweet” while giggling uncontrollably.

Michael snorts, looking at Jer’s messy handwriting fondly. “You’re just jealous you don’t have a girlfriend to write love letters to.”

Rich raises his eyebrows. “Or boyfriend,” he says, grinning. “I’m totally bi.”

Michael barks a laugh. “Sure, dude.”

“I  _ am.  _ I’ve got a pin and everything.” Rich glances over his shoulder and seems to realize he doesn’t have his backpack. “Er… I left my backpack in your chicken coop, so you’ll just have to believe me.”

“Oh, I do.” Michael circles where Jeremy misspelt  _ beautiful.  _ “Just interesting that you’d tell me.”

Rich’s face flushes. “It’s a deflection tactic. Straight people are usually so surprised that they didn’t ‘pick me up on their gaydars’ that they don’t do that awkward ‘oh why are  _ you  _ single’ thing they always do.”

Michael looks up at Rich, who looks genuinely irritated by the idea. “You know that usually means they’re flirting with you.” He bites his lip. “I mean, unless they’re your grandma.”

Rich giggles. “Yeah. I guess. I mean, I know that.” He looks down at the windowsill and picks at the paint. Michael thinks about calling him out for destroying his room, but half the paint is gone anyway. “I just like someone else, and having to figure out some way to let people down easy sucks. Besides, half those girls aren’t interested in me after I come out to them?” He shrugs and Michael shakes his head.

“Straight people,” he says dismissively and circles an extraneous coma. 

“Ugh, I  _ know _ .”

 

He keeps showing up. They hang out after school, in the evening, while Michael does homework, while Rich vents about everything that doesn’t matter at all. Michael would say that they’re friends, probably, even if Rich is only using him for his chickens. 

Jeremy thinks it’s all terribly entertaining and Michael doesn’t let Rich inside. 

 

They go and hang out in the chicken coop one day, when Rich shows up and Michael’s house while his neighbors are having a house party. Michael says that it’s too risky to have Rich floating outside his window when there are people just outside, staring at everything close to them. Even if they’re drunk, he insists, it’s too risky. 

He meets Rich on the grass below his bedroom window, his shoes still untied and they cut through Michael’s mom’s garden to get to the coop. Michael unlocks the door to the pen and slips in, while Rich just jumps over the chicken wire keeping the birds inside. He can jump really high, too, instead of just flying everywhere. Unfair. The chickens are asleep in their coop, so both boys squeeze through the chicken-sized door and huddle in a corner of the tiny house. 

Rich is pressed against Michael’s side and he grins as Michael introduces him to all of the chickens, ignoring the tiny twin bite marks on each of their necks. 

“This is Cluck Kent, like superman,” Michael says, “And that’s Walter, and Yolko Ono, and Michelle, and Blackie- you can tell which ones each of my mom’s named. Renee likes puns a lot.”

“Did you name Blackie?” Rich asks, sounding a bit sleepy.

Michael elbows him. “No!” He says, affronted. “I’m a bit more creative than that. I named Ms. Pepper, though.”

“Thee’s my favorite.” Rich grins his grin, the one that Michael’s found makes him feel a bit lightheaded. He leans his head against Michael’s shoulder and pets the closest chicken gently, jerking his hand away when she ruffles her feathers. Michael laughs and his startled expression melts back into a grin and Michael’s breath catches somewhere in his throat. Because this boy is so beautiful, so bright and good, and Michael is absolutely fucked.

 

It’s almost two when Rich shows up at Michael’s window. Michael’s half-asleep, his phone still auto-playing Dan and Phil’s Sims videos. He raps at the pane louder than he probably has to, and Michael almost falls out of bed. He sits up, wipes the trail of drool from the corner of his mouth, and pads over to the window.

He hefts it open and blinks blurrily at Rich. “What’s up? It’s 1:56, this is considered rude by most people.”

“I’m not most people.” Rich snaps. His eyes drag up Michael and dart around the room and he smirks. “Man, there’s so much about thith thituation that I could make fun of you for. Weed thocks?” His lisp is actually audible now, instead of carefully covered up.

“They’re from Jer,” Michael says defensively.. 

“Dan and Phil?”

“Comfort video? Work really sucked.”

“I can relate.” Rich lets out a breath that’s really more of a sigh and positions himself so that he’s sitting just outside of Michael’s window, his back and feet braced on opposite sides of the window frame. Michael figures this means they’re going to be talking for a while, so he drags his pillow and comforter back over to the window and pauses the video. Rich stares at Michael’s blanket and he wraps himself in it. “Can I come in?” he asks softly. 

Michael can barely keep his eyes open, and while he doesn’t think Rich would bite him at this point, he can’t be too careful. He’s tired enough that basically anything could happen to him and he wouldn’t do anything. “Not tonight,” he mutters, and a look of such profound disappointment flashes across Rich’s face that Michael reconciders. “Well, I guess. But only tonight and you have to promise not to bite me.”

“I told you, only if you want.” Rich says, but it’s not accompanied by the grin and suggestive expression Michael almost expects at this point. He looks sullen as he clambers through the window, landing with his head on Michael’s lap. He closes his eyes almost immediately and opens his mouth slightly, the flashes of his fangs that Michael can see gleaming in the moonlight. Michael doesn’t know what to do with his hands except run them through Rich’s hair, so he lightly trails his fingers through Rich’s rooster stripe while scrolling through his phone. Rich makes the same hissing noise that he did the first time Michael saw him, and Michael’s not sure if that’s a good thing, but he doesn’t think he could stop (petting him? is that what he’s doing?) carding his hands through Rich’s hair, so he doesn’t.

“So, what’s up?” Michael finally asks, once he’s deduced that Rich isn’t actually asleep. 

Rich shrugs and doesn’t open his eyes. He stops hissing. “I dunno. My dad’th in a crappy mood and I couldn’t thleep and I like being around you.”

Michael can feel his cheeks heat and he thanks his birth dad’s genes for the fact that he doesn’t visibly blush. Really, the only good thing he’s gotten from his dad. “Aw, I like being around you too, man.”

Rich almost smiles at him- Michael can see a grin flickering at the edge of his mouth. It’s a very nice mouth, really. Pink and like it’s made for smiling. Michael supposes most mouths are. Made for smiling and eating and talking and kissing and-

Rich props himself up and twists at the waist, pressing Michael against the wall and kissing him hard, crushing their mouths together. Michael stops breathing, stops thinking about whatever ridiculously menial thing he was thinking about, and focuses every ounce of his energy on kissing Rich back. He’s always been single minded when he’s doing something he likes, and he likes this. Rich opens his mouth slightly and Michael’s tongue presses against one of Rich’s teeth- one of his fangs- and it’s sharp and cold and doesn’t actually feel much like a normal tooth. Rich jolts away from him, standing up and backing away toward the window. “Fuck,” he says, and Michael blinks up at him.

“Uh,” he says, eloquently. Michael’s always been eloquent. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m going to fucking  _ bite  _ you is what’th wrong,” Rich says. His voice is louder than it should be at two in the morning and Michael doesn’t want his moms to wake up. That doesn’t seem like the important thing here, though. “I don’t know what I’m doing with theethe thingth, if you haven’t noticed. I’ve almotht killed like, five squirrelth and whenever my dad yellth at me I just thmell blood. I’m worried I’m going to hurt thomeone acthidentally and it’th a fuck of a lot more likely I’m going to bite you if your  _ tongue  _ is in my  _ mouth.  _ Fuck.” 

Rich runs his fingers through his hair and paces as he rants and Michael doesn’t know what to do. Jeremy’s the only person he’s ever had to console, and Jeremy’s never been an angry person. He’s always gotten sad and Michael knows that when someone’s sad they need video games and weed and ice cream and someone to listen to them. He doesn’t know what to do when people are angry and not knowing how to help this person he cares about makes him irritable. 

“Well, you kissed me,” Michael says because he thinks he should say something but he doesn’t know what. As soon as he says it, he knows it wasn’t right. 

Rich stops and stares at Michael. He looks sad now and Michael doesn’t think that’s a good thing. “I’m thorry, then.” He snaps and dives out the open window. Michael doesn’t follow him (how could he? he has no idea where Rich is going) and he eventually falls back asleep. 

 

One of their chickens is dead. Specifically, Ms. Pepper is dead. Her throat is torn open and there’s blood everywhere when Michael goes to feed the chickens. The wound looks like it’s from a fox, or an angsty vampire. Michael feels sick. He and his moms bury Ms. Pepper in the backyard and make a tiny gravestone out of a rock and some sharpies and glitter glue. Michael thinks Ms. Pepper would approve of the grave, but that doesn't stop him from moping the entire weekend.

Michael catches Rich floating around his backyard listlessly Saturday night, just barely visible in the light from Michael’s room. Michael opens his windows and yells,  _ “stay away from my chickens, you fucking murderer.” _

Rich looks confused- and a bit hurt, and Michael feels immediately awful. He drifts up to Michael’s window. “Murderer?” He asks.

“Ms. Pepper is dead.” Michael says, crossing his arms. “Her throat was torn out.”

“I-” Rich’s eyes are wide. “You think I did that?”

Michael looks down at the grass below, and Ms. Pepper’s tiny grave. “I don’t- I don’t know?” He says, and hates that it comes out as a question. 

Rich’s gaze follows Michael’s and he makes a choking sound- quiet enough that Michael wouldn’t be able to hear it any time but late at night. He leaves abruptly, without saying goodbye. 

Michael doesn’t think Rich is going to show up at his window again, but he doesn’t want to talk to him so he stays over at Jeremy’s just in case. Jeremy seems sceptical when Michael hypothesizes that Rich murdered his chicken, and it does seem dumb when he says it out loud.

“You think he kissed you, and then, after monologuing about being worried about hurting someone, went and killed his favorite of your chickens? How does that even make sense?” Jeremy tosses a blue shell and Michael and he spins off the track. Michael kicks him and Jeremy pauses the game. “Seriously, Michael. Did you accuse him of this?”

Michael doesn’t meet Jeremy’s eyes and fiddles with an unplugged joystick. 

“You  _ didn’t.”  _ Jeremy has the audacity to gasp. Michael falls backwards and presses a pillow into his face.

“I screamed at him and called him a murderer.” Michael admits, lifting the pillow out of his mouth. 

“ _ Micah. _ Jesus Christ.”

“I was upset. Ms. Pepper was  _ my  _ chicken. I raised her and then I saw her with her throat torn out. It wasn’t rational, but I didn’t judge you like this when you bought a tic tac for 400 dollars.”

“On the contrary, you’ve brought that up almost monthly since.” Jeremy shakes his head. “Sorry if I’m being judgy, I just… you really called him a murderer? I thought you liked him.”

Michael groans and shoves the pillow into his face again. “I do,” he says, his voice muffled through layers of cotton and down feathers. Jeremy flops down next to him and tugs the pillows aside, mussing Michael’s hair. 

“That sucks, man.” Michael moans and rubs at his eyes. “But hey, hey!” Jeremy smiles at his best friend. “No matter what happens, I’ll love you. Camps before vamps, right?”

Michael blinks at him. “That doesn’t even make  _ sense.” _

“We went to camp together that one time, remember?” Jeremy blushes as he talks, his freckles disappearing into the red of his cheeks. 

Michael grins delightedly. “And you cried the whole time because you hated horses!”

Jeremy shudders. “There’s a reason we only went once.”

 

Michael doesn’t see Rich all week, really. He thinks he sees him walk down the hallway on Tuesday, maybe, and he almost walks over to apologize. He doesn’t, just shoves his hands further into his hoodiie pocket and turns up his music. 

 

Friday night there’s a rapping at his window as he’s getting ready for bed- he’s caught halfway into a sports bra, and Michael’s knee-jerk reaction is  _ jesus christ this boy has the worst timing  _ before he gets himself sorted and starts feeling conflicted. He opens the drapes and pushes up the sash. He frowns up at the other boy, who’s a few feet away, looking somewhere between guilty and irritated and defiant. A whole mess of emotions, the two of them seem to be. 

Rich is holding something fuzzy halfway behind his back and it squirms in his grasp, squealing. Rich’s fangs are dripping something dark and his teeth are bared and Michael has no fucking idea what’s happening. 

“Uh, what’s up, dude?” Michael asks, standing next to the window. 

Rich doesn’t meet Michael’s eyes. He holds up the thing he’s holding and it’s a fucking  _ fox.  _ Orange and black and white, with a fluffy tail and a snarl that would put the fear of god in any small rodent. “I know you thaid not to come back, but I thought you might like to know who  _ actually  _ killed Mitheth Pepper.” Rich’s snarl matches the foxes when he says  _ actually,  _ his fangs bared. It’s both jarring and kinda hot. 

Look, Michael had a vampire phase, just like every other gay he knows. He’s finally possibly romantically entangled with one, he’s allowed to kinda enjoy it.

But. Fox. “The fox?” Michael doesn’t mean to sound so skeptical. Rich’s claim makes more sense than Michael’s had. Foxes kill a lot of chickens. 

Rich shakes the fox by the nape of its neck and it whines. “Yeah. This bathtard.”

“Oh.” Michael nods. “I’ll be right outside. Can you hold the fox nicer?”

Rich looks relieved that Michael asked him to and immediately nestles the animal in his arms. It’s absolutely precious and Michael has to resist the urge to take a picture. It’s too dark anyway, and do vampires even show up in photographs? 

He’s staring and Rich looks at his strangely, then grins his dumb huge smile and Michael feels a bit better. He turns on his heel and runs downstairs, grabs his shoes and shoves them on and runs outside to Rich, who’s landed on the ground and is sitting cross legged in the grass, scolding the fox. 

“You little orange dude, that’th a felony! You murdered a boy’th chicken, that’th tho rude, I can’t believe thith would…” Rich trails off when he spots Michael, the finger he was shaking at the fox slowing. His face flushes- Rich blushes a lot for a vampire. Michael thought they didn’t have a lot of blood. “Oh, Michael.”

Michael kneels in front of him- the grass is already dewy and he can feel it soaking through the knees of his pajama pants. “So, this is the culprit? He seems pretty nice for a fox.”

“I think it’th the vampire thing. Animalth have been really dothile around me thince I… you know, lotht all my blood and thtarted being able to float. They uthed to hate me. Me and my mom would go and feed thquirrels before she pathed away and they wouldn’t take anything from me.” Rich looks a bit whistfull. The fox snaps at his fingers and he jolts back, smiling lopsidedly at Michael. “Thith dude ith definitely the one who killed your chicken, though.” He frowns. “I gueth I thouldn’t have brought him back near the coop, then.”

Michael giggles- he’s tired, and his giggle is  _ ugh,  _ but Rich smiles at his laugh. Michael feels a bit more charitable toward it. “I’m sure it’s okay. He doesn’t seem apt to go kill some more chickens. How’d you know it was this fox?”

Rich doesn’t meet Michael’s eyes, just skirtches the fox behind its ears. “I, uh… I’d drunk enough of Mithith Pepper’s blood to be able to thmell it out and thith guy thmelt like he’d rolled in it. Which he might have.”

Michael blinks. “Huh. Neat vampire power, then.”

“Not really.” Rich scowls down at the fox. “I hate all of them, even the flying ones.”

“Why?” Kneeling is beginning to get really uncomfortable. Michael stretches out his legs and reaches toward the fox. It hisses at him. 

“I don’t like being a vampire. For one, the fangs give me this fucking lithp and I feel like, other.” Rich ducks his head. “Like when I figured out I was bi and felt like I didn’t belong anywhere except instead of interalized homophobic it’s just vauge bloodlust and facts.” He hisses and the fox turns its head to hiss back at him. “I’ve spent so long convincing myself that I wasn’t  _ wrong  _ or sinful or what the fuck ever, and now I am. There’s not much more unholy than a vampire.”

“Well…” Michael says slowly. “I know you’re not  _ wrong.  _ You’re… beautiful,” he says. “Nothing as beautiful as you could be inherently unholy. And, like…” He’s never been a vampire, but he knows how it feels to not belong anywhere. “I mean, how did you become one?”

Rich shrugs. “I got bit at a party, probably.”

“So, someone bit you. There have to be other vampires out there.”

“Yeah, other vampireth who are  _ athholes  _ and bite random people at partieth.” Rich scowls.

“But you’re not as asshole,” Michael reasons. Rich looks skeptical, but Michael just shoots him a wry glance and continues. “And if anyone can become a hot undead creature, then logically other non-jerks are vampires too.”

“Probably. I gueth.” Rich shrugs. “I’m really sorry about your chicken.”

“So am I. Her spirit will live on, though.” Michael makes a vague grand gesture and Rich smiles slightly. Michael scoots closer to him. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I’ll look online to see if I can find some community of non-asshole vampires for you, k? And you’ll always have your tall wheelchair friend.” Michael says consolingly. “And me.”

“Aw,” Rich coos. “That’th tho thweet. Hith name ith Jake, though.”

“I’m very sweet,” Michael acknowledges. “And I’m really sorry for… screaming at you and calling you a murderer last week. That was really weird and dumb and I probably shouldn’t have jumped to-”

Rich cuts him off, leaning over the fox and kissing him. Michael’s apology melts into a mumbled  _ holy shit.  _ It’s simultaneously the same and different from the last time they kissed. Rich’s lips are colder and there’s a fuzzy being in his lap, but his fangs are the same and they’re really very cool. Both meanings of the word. Michael closes his eyes and leans closer and Rich shoves the fox off of his lap. Michael can feel is brush against his side as he runs away, but he barely notices it. Michael presses closer to Rich and the pair topple backwards, breaking the kiss. Rich starts to giggle and Michael props himself up with one hand. 

“Hey,” Michael says slowly, twining his fingers through Rich’s bangs. Rich hums in question and squirms closer to him. “I like your lisp.”

Rich rolls his eyes and makes a face.

“And I like that you can float. There’s nothing quite as romantic as someone knocking on your window with a live fox. I think it’s really cool that you can smell different people’s blood, honestly.” Michael glances down at Rich, who has his eyes closed. “Rich?”

“I’m lithtening. Keep telling me thingth you like about me.”

Michael giggles and Rich grins. “I really like your fangs.” Michael continues. “Like, the fact that they could kill me is kinda scary, but you’re also twelve-year-old Michael’s dream boy.”  _ And 17 year old Michael’s  _ Michael thinks but doesn’t say, because that’s weird.

“Aw, you had a vampire phase?”

Michael snorts. “‘had’? Jeremy still makes fun of my for having a thing about teeth.” Which is a weird thing to admit, Michael reminds himself. 

Rich opens his eyes and waggles his eyebrows. He seems back to himself, which is good. “A teeth thing, you thay. Like, these teeth?” He points at one of his fangs with his tongue, which is  _ pierced.  _ Michael looks away, his face hot, but he’s grinning.

“Maybe.”

Rich sits up and moves to straddle Michael. “Aw, come on Mikey, don’t be  _ thy,”  _ He drawls, sticking his tongue out at Michael. Michael raises his eyebrows and props himself up with his arms. 

“So, making out with you seems like a nice next step-” Rich nods in agreement- “but not on my lawn. We have to go back up to my room.”

“That can be arranged,” Rich says, grinning. He scoops Michael into his arms, one arm under his knees and the other against his back and starts to float up to his bedroom window. 

Michael squacks. “Rich, what the  _ fuck-” _

“Thuperthtrength.” Rich says with a nod. His smile is wider than the Grand Canyon and  _ times  _ as beautiful. 

“ _ Jesus,”  _ Michael says under his breath. This vampire thing might take a while to get used to.

(Not that he's complaining.)

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this!! i saw bmc a few weeks ago and i,, love these two so much and they deserve so much more than just being in love w their best friends and wow! they're so good. anyway yeah. comments make my day!! 
> 
> u can find me (and talk to me abt expensive headphones pls) on tumblr @ the-stars-say-gay


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